By Kang Hyun-kyungThe organizing committee of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics hailed North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's announcement that he is willing to send a delegation to the Olympics to be held in South Korea next month.Lee Hee-beom, president of the organizing committee, said Monday Kim's positive remarks about the North Korean delegates' participation in the Olympics were a nice surprise and he feels like he got a gift from the North."It's very positive to hear North Korea is willing to have a dialogue with South Korea about the Olympics. I take this as a positive signal for their participation in the Olympics," he said. "We welcome this with open arms. It's like we got a New Year's gift."He made the remarks hours after the North Korean leader said in a televised New Year speech he was willing to send a North Korean delegation to the South. "(The Olympics) will be an opportunity for us to display our nation's strength and profile to the world and we sincerely hope it can succeed," he said. "We are willing to take all necessary measures, including sending a delegation to the South, and if necessary North Korea is willing to meet (the South) to move it forward."Lee said the organizing committee has fully prepared for the North's participation in the Olympics. He said North Korea could send delegations in figure skating, short-track speed skating, cross-country skiing and women's ice hockey. Technically, the North Korean athletes are not qualified for the Winter Olympics, so they are ineligible to compete. The International Olympic Committee, however, is likely to give wild cards to the North Koreans to help them join the competitions. South Korea has been working on encouraging North Korea to join the Olympics through the IOC and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). Earlier, IOC President Thomas Bach said the IOC hopes for North Korea's participation in the sporting events.

"The IOC already invited the Democratic People's Republic of Korea back in February, supporting their athletes in order to qualify," Bach told reporters in June during his visit to South Korea for the World Taekwondo Federation Championship held in the southwestern city of Muju. "The Olympic Games are about understanding. They are about dialogue and they are about peace as much as they are about competition."Sung Baik-yoo, a spokesman of the Olympic organizing committee, said the North Korean leader's remarks on their possible participation in the Olympics are positive because his rhetoric would help participating nations ease their worries about the safety of their delegations."As you know, there were some nations that explicitly expressed their concerns about the security environment on the Korean Peninsula as tensions have mounted after North Korea test-fired missiles and conducted a nuclear test," he said. "So Kim's positive remarks would definitely help those concerned nations build confidence in the safety of their delegations during the Olympics."Sung, however, said the organizing committee won't overreact to the North Korean leader's remarks and fully focus on the successful hosting of the forthcoming Olympics without distraction. "Although he made a positive gesture about North Korea's participation in the Olympics, there are still nuclear and missile issues that remain unresolved," he said, "so what we are going to do is we will wait and see how the possible inter-Korean negotiations will go."